Split-Screen :: The Game-Geek’s Daily Read

by Ravi Sinha

The console wars are coming along nicely, and I literally mean “nicely”, since fans haven’t (yet) begun ordering hits on opposing dissenters. It’s understandably irritating to be tantalized by future properties in the here and now. Sooner or later, some of us, especially in the gaming media, begin to think in bigger futuristic terms. Terms like “720” and “PS4”. Sooner, rather than later, we begin to envision release dates for these imaginary masterpieces. And before you know it, some one, any one, will explain why you’re going to see a Wii 2, PS4 or Xbox 720 (so what, is it two 360s glued together?) by, say, 2012.

And before you jump to conclusions, let me first say: No. The motive of this article is not to defeat the various theories of the eighth generation consoles’ arrivals using plain and simple common sense because enough real world evidence exists to prove the same. Ditto for providing any actual release dates. Neither are the goals of this article but they bear mentioning.

If you look at the Playstation series’ line of release, they’ve come out roughly six years apart from each other. The PS1 in 1994, the PS2 in 2000 and the PS3 in 2006. Microsoft’s Xbox was released in 2001 with the 360 arriving in 2005. Nintendo’s Gamecube released in 2001 and the Wii released in 2006. So, if we look at the differences, then following basic calcuation, the year/s to expect the 8th generation would be 2010-2012.

Several titles like Final Fantasy Versus XIII (an estimated release of late 2010 to early 2011), God of War 3 (2009-2010), Gears of War 3 (estimated 2010), Dante’s Inferno (2009), WET (2009), Saboteur (2009-2010), and future franchise editions to Mirror’s Edge, Dead Space, Mass Effect, Tekken and Sonic the Hedgehog release in this period. Assuming the next bevy of consoles arrive in this period, will the aforementioned titles and their respective consoles appear obsolete? Will there be ports? Will probable backwards compatibility be available (keep in mind that not even the current gen consoles are 100% backwards-compatible)?

If God of War 3, for example, is multi-platform/backwards-compatible, who do you think would buy it first? Millions of established PS3 fans or fans uninterested in a PS4, which has to rely on previous gen titles to sustain it through the first year? The company, in this case Sony, would be too focused on GoW3’s release to be concerned about their PS4’s launch title overshadowing it. It also knows how many people would pick up a PS4 to run the same game – look how wonderfully backwards compatibility sustained the PS2 in its first year. Would you buy a cheaper 360 for Gears of War 3? Or an expensive 720 for the same, minus any real additions in content (because it sure as hell won’t look different)?

It’s also not a matter of a consumer’s investment but a company and its partners, too. The PS1 and PS2 had technology not too far ahead of their respective times. In fact, the world out-stripped their technical capabilities enough to warrant price drops in CD and DVD drives. Sony was able to incorporate its Emotion Engine and Graphics Synthesizer GPU on to a single chip thanks to drops in manufacturing costs. But if you look at the PS3, its technology is far ahead of most average PCs. How many PCs have a Blu-ray player? How many have a multi-cell processor? More than two years later and Sony is inching ever closer to breaking even on its manufacturing costs. Greater penetration of Blu-ray players in the global market should help further reduce the costs, but this goes hand-in-hand with design. Only when Sony makes them cheaper will people buy more – and only when people have had enough of it will Sony begin something new, that too when the demand warrants the supply. From where Sony stands, that’s still a long couple of years away.

Microsoft’s product manager Aaron Greenberg delivers an eloquent yet uniquely vital response on his company’s stance:

We’re delivering High-Definition experiences. We have storage. We have high-speed connectivity. So you know we’re not limited by the hardware at all. We see a very, very long future ahead of us as we think about the platform and we’re not even thinking about the next generation at this point. I think that’s what we did with the New Xbox Experience, and many people said that it was essentially like launching a new console and we did that through the power of software. When we designed the Xbox 360 the strategy was, ‘What if we could make a console that we could continuously update over time?’

“Last generation we couldn’t do that because we only had 10 percent of our owners connected to Live. But now the majority of people that own a console are connected. We’ve got 17 million people connected. We can always add new features and new functionality and so we’ll continue to do that without requiring them to buy new hardware.

So, ascertaining a console’s release date on tradition alone won’t work. The 7th generation of consoles is so much unlike the previous ones in terms of marketing strategy, features, game development and technology consumption. Give an average man a cave, and he’ll want a better home fast. Give him a mansion, and I can guarantee his impetus to upgrade will be much less, almost minuscule.

You’ve heard the logical arguments but the one facet overtakes both: The present.

Any company, be it Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft, has its own strategy but they all revolve around the desire of one person: You. Trust me, after studying audience research methods, any of these three would gladly appreciate it if you sat down and just told them what you wanted.

People are fickle, I’ll give you that, but not to the point where they confuse desire with necessity. Ask yourself this: Are you really so obsessed with the next generation that you’ve forgotten the current one? Are you really so far along in your dream of playing a PS4 that you’ve forgotten how to wake up? The closing statement echoes the opening one: No.

Your console, be it a Wii, 360, PS3, is alive and well. Like a puppy that’s grown up, it’s a part of your life and you’re happy with it. Do you think of its death even before it’s had a real chance to live?

Its fun to think of tomorrow, as it is to remember yesterday. Anticipation and nostalgia, the happiness to come and the happiness that was, both pale in comparison to the real thing. And that’s sitting down with your favourite console, right now and having fun.